


a riddle, wrapped in a mystery, inside an enigma (but perhaps there is a key)

by C_AND_B



Category: Supergirl (TV 2015)
Genre: (except it's actually 10 + 1), 5+1 Things, F/F
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-02-12
Updated: 2018-02-12
Packaged: 2019-03-17 09:42:07
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 7,539
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13656393
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/C_AND_B/pseuds/C_AND_B
Summary: 10 things Kara learns about Lena and something she ends up learning about herself.





	a riddle, wrapped in a mystery, inside an enigma (but perhaps there is a key)

**Author's Note:**

> the title is from a quote by Churchill - don't ask me why.
> 
> the accent and tattoo were prompted by defygravity79 over on tumbles - sorry it took me forever to do it (hope it's alright for what you wanted, was fully ready to mock KMcG and her tat but I apparently rationalised it). 
> 
> the rest is just random crap that i hope y'all don't hate, sorry for any mistakes, etc.

**The Beginning.**

Kara always thought Lena seemed somewhat of an open book, which she supposed came with the territory of being part of an influential family, of being thrust into the spotlight the second you were adopted into a new ‘better’ life and never breaking free of it thereafter. But Kara made an assumption, based on the few times she’d met Lena, and the easy way in which Lena had laid the truth on the line like she was tired of people thinking she was hiding things.

Kara thought Lena was a book review littered with spoilers. A dot to dot picture. A laptop with the password clearly written on a post-it note stuck inside, hell, she figured Lena was a laptop without a password in the first place. Uncomplicated. Obvious. Truthful to a fault.

Boy was she wrong.

That’s not to say that Lena was hiding some insidious alter-ego and simply pretending to want to make a change for the better - both at her company and in the world. Not at all. Kara was under the impression that Lena was as kind hearted as she appeared. It’s just that the more that Kara learned about Lena, the more she realised she didn’t really know that much about her at all beyond surface characteristics and superficial traits.

She also realised she wanted to know more.         

A lot more.

So she opened the book of Lena Luthor and started at page one.

* * *

**  
One.**  

The first time Kara finds Lena has more than a few tricks up her sleeve is after only a few weeks of knowing her. At this point, Kara knew that Lena ordered her coffee black but put in copious amounts of sugar to rid it of the bitter taste. She knew that Lena was strong-willed but not hard-headed, that she was willing to budge on things if someone could make a valid argument as to why (Kara for one was very thankful for that one, she’s not sure she could have handled the backlash of an alien detection device - personally or semi-professionally).

She knew that Lena was willing to help. That, in all actuality, she was happy to help, _craved_ it. She knew that she could last a whole day in killer heels and that the chess board definitely wasn’t for show, the pieces having moved in a delicate dance each new time Kara appeared. She knew that she favoured winning with white but used the black to try out new strategies.

Kara knew a lot of things about Lena that anyone with some semblance of observational skills and a reasonable amount of effort could know. It’s not until she starts asking questions that she learns a little bit more.

They’ve made lunch a thing. Which is really to say that Kara had decided lunch was going to be a thing for them and Lena had graciously accepted her complete non-question and seemingly decided no harm could come from letting Kara bring her a salad every Wednesday with a smile and the promise of polite company (‘no quotes necessary’, Kara had assured her the first time she appeared, making a show of pushing all of Lena’s pens out of reach until she chuckled at Kara’s antics and asked about her day).

So Kara appears around midday with lunch as usual, already prepared to regale Lena with her latest complaints about Snapper and work, in the hopes of getting Lena to share a little more of herself. Unusually, Lena is tapping into her computer mindlessly, awaiting Kara’s arrival with a small smile, upturned at the edge like she was still sure that this would be the week Kara decided enough was enough and didn’t turn up for the unspoken, unscheduled appointment.

But Kara does show up, with something other than a salad for once in an attempt to broaden Lena’s horizons to the world of fatty foods, and Lena still sends her that half delighted, half surprised smile. Only this time it appears alongside a subtle eye roll and a vague gesture towards the phone in her hand that makes it seem like it did Lena a personal injustice, and makes Kara stifle to hold in a laugh.

A laugh that quickly evaporates a second later when Lena speaks again and Kara recognises strains of a language that definitely isn’t English. Now languages were somewhat of a hobby of Kara’s. A passion. Some might even go as far as to call it a turn on. Maybe. If they were being brutally honest instead of inherently awkward. And say, if someone were to say languages were a turn on for Kara, _hypothetically_ , they might also mention that Kara had a particular thing for French. Just like a super casual, super intense enjoyment of the rolling tongues and the certain curve of the mouth it created.

No big deal.

Only Lena is really good at French. And the furrow in her brow as she struggles to get her point across to the person on the other side, who is apparently stubbornly refusing to cooperate with her wishes, is really only adding to the overall effect of the scene. And, well, Kara is really confused as to why there’s a storm raging in her stomach right now but she’s going to blame it on hunger. Hunger for the burger that was currently warming her hand through the bag she was holding.

_It was definitely the burger_.

Kara is patiently waiting on the couch, setting out her food and Lena’s side by side meticulously, in order to distract herself from the woman on the other side of the room, by the time Lena offers her swift goodbyes and makes her way to Kara’s side.

“I’m sorry about that I-“

“You speak French,” Kara blurts out, immediately wishing she hadn’t as Lena smirks and cocks an amused eyebrow at the abrupt utterance. She hadn’t really meant to say it. Not yet anyway. And certainly not so obviously. She was going to be the picture of slyness and seamlessly slip it into the conversation at some later date. Instead she had all but shouted it at Lena like she wasn’t already acutely aware of her own language abilities.

“Amongst others,” Lena indulges the interruption. Maybe because it’s the first time Kara hasn’t let Lena finish her sentence. Maybe it’s because Kara’s interest is more than a little obvious.

“Others?” And her intrigue has reached new heights. Kara remembers when she first landed to Earth and the Danvers had tried to teach her English. She had the basics down within the first few weeks. Colloquialisms took her a little bit of time. She’d been running around like some nineteen fifties housewife for the first few months until Alex took pity on her and started pointing her in the right direction (she hadn’t quite shook off ‘golly’ quite yet though).

After that she’d gone a little crazy, looking into every language she could find, hoping to understand them, speak them. Hoping that the more she understood language, the more she could understand this new, terrifying world she found herself in.

“I’d say around six total.”

“You can speak six languages?”

“Not fluently,” Lena downplays with a self conscious smile. Kara finds herself wondering if she does that with every talent she has. She once told Kara that she could run the business because she had to, because no one else would. At the time, Kara had read between the lines and assumed what she really meant was that no one else _could_ , not as well as Lena anyhow. Now she realised Lena doubted her abilities just as much as Kara did at her lowest points.

“You’re not impressing me any less.” Winn could barely speak his first language whenever Superman was in the room, or when pretty girls approached him, or when Alex did that thing where she threatened you with her eyes without saying anything at all.

“They’re necessary in business.”

“You learned six languages because they were necessary?” Kara asks incredulously.

“Honestly?” Lena inquires, releasing a deep breath when Kara nods in affirmation. “Lex can speak five and I always enjoyed the way my mother’s face would pinch when she discovered her wonder boy had been bested. It’s actually why I love chess so much - it’s the one thing he could never beat me at, no matter how hard he tried.”

“You played a lot?”

“All the time. He said it was the best way to understand the world. Personally I liked languages. You can learn a lot about a person through what they say, _how they say it_.” Kara thinks about the way Alex always catches her eyes when she asks how she is, but avoids that same eye contact when she answers that question about herself. About the soft way Eliza speaks to her like she’s still afraid her voice will be too loud for Kara. The pain in J’onn’s tone and the hope in James’. The way Lena turns from open to closed off at the flip of a switch.

“What can you learn about me?” Kara ventures curiously.

“That you like to ask questions,” Lena responds with a pointed grin that has Kara blushing before she can even begin to figure out why.

“Sorry.”

“It’s not a bad thing. People usually decide they’ve got me pinned down before they’ve even met me. It’s incredibly refreshing to find someone curious enough to attempt a peak behind the curtain.” Personally, Kara finds it hard to believe that there’s no one else out there who had felt the same inexplicable pull to Lena Luthor that she was feeling. She finds it hard to accept that there wasn’t anyone willing to ignore hearsay and rumour and take a dive into the sadness pooling behind the perfectly crafted shine of her eyes. Personally, Kara could think of very few things she’d rather do.

“I’d like to know you.”

“I’d like to know you too, Kara Danvers.”

* * *

 

  **Two.**  

_Purity:_

_Noun._

  * _Freedom from contamination_.
  * _Freedom from immorality_.
  * _The word tattooed over Lena Luthor’s ass_.



Kara had never really put all that much thought into tattoos. Probably because she had a very distinct inability to actually get them, what with needles breaking whenever they touched her skin and Alex’s very strict policy on what kryptonite should actually be used for.

So Kara couldn’t get a tattoo, and although she could objectively admire the way they looked printed on people’s skin, she hadn’t really spent that much of her time thinking about them. She hadn’t. That is, until she caught sight of swirling lettering decorating the lower half of Lena’s back one day as the woman reached for something on a shelf definitely beyond her reach, even with ridiculous heels.

Kara hadn’t said anything at first. She actually kept quiet for a whole week; too busy processing the new information in her brain to even think about confronting Lena about her latest discovery. Mostly because it didn’t fit with Kara’s view of Lena in the slightest and she couldn’t figure out why.

Kara could definitely see Lena, underage and overconfident, going into a tattoo parlour and demanding they tattoo her just so she could laugh at her mother’s annoyance, but something told her that the tattoo was newer than that. A lot newer than that. And it was big. Really big. The kind of big that Kara didn’t usually associate with CEO’s of huge companies and definitely bigger than she had expected to be hidden under Lena’s perfectly pressed blouses.

Not that she spent a lot of time thinking about what Lena’s body was like under her clothes because she didn’t... do that.

She spends a few days just trying to figure out how to say that she knows Lena has a tattoo without sounding like some kind of creep. Then she spends a few days wondering why she thinks casually noticing someone has a tattoo makes you a creep, unless what she was really worried about was how much time she spent zoning out and looking at Lena for a reason she couldn’t place.

And then, like always, instead of following the plan she carefully crafted out in front of her bathroom mirror, she just ends up blurting the thought whilst Lena sips on her over sugared coffee.

“You have a tattoo. On your back. It’s big.” That wasn’t even a good sentence. Just three choppy observations thrown together in the most awkward of ways. Lena actually somehow looks less taken aback than Kara feels about having said the words. Rao she was an idiot.

“I do,” Lena answers slowly like she’s unsure of exactly where this conversation is going. She’s probably right to be apprehensive considering Kara’s not really sure where she’s going with it either and it was her who started the whole thing. She should’ve followed her script. She should always follow the script (she learned that lesson the hard way when she timidly ventured into the world of high school theatre before ducking out and never looking the group in the eye again).

“It’s nice. I probably should have opened with that. It’s big but it’s nice. I like it.” She really needed to stop saying it was big. It was. It was big but that wasn’t supposed to be the main point she was making. She actually did like it, liked the way it made her question everything she knew about Lena, made her re-evaluate all of her preconceptions and the way it just... stood out so completely, the exact way Lena seemed to stand out in a crowd.

“Thank you,” Lena replies sincerely, if not a little sceptical.

“Sorry, that wasn’t the way I meant to go about that.”

“Oh I know. I actually figured you noticed it last week, you sort of zoned out midway through lunch. I’ve been waiting for you to ask about it since.” Of course she had. Of course Lena had noticed and had then just left Kara to fumble about for over a week. She was probably having the time of her life watching Kara flail through sentences and try to (not at all) surreptitiously get another glance.

“I just didn’t expect it.”

“Most people don’t.”

“Am I allowed to ask about it?” Kara questions tentatively, happy to let Lena set the pace. If there was one thing Kara knew about Lena without having to pry, it was that she was far happier letting someone in if she thought it was on her own terms. Kara, if she was going to toot her own horn, would admit she had kinda become pretty amazing at making Lena think this friendship was her idea when ultimately Kara wasn’t taking no for an answer.

“Freedom from contamination - that’s what purity means. I know it’s big, and a little ostentatious, and not in the most stereotypically classy of places for a tattoo, but after watching my brother fall apart and having everyone tell me to be a Luthor was to be evil, I needed to remind myself that I was my own person. That I could remain... _pure_.”

“And you didn’t just get one of those key chains with an affirming quote or a nice poster for your very bland office walls?” Kara jokes, pointing towards the white on white on white.

“I happen to like my office decor,” Lena defends, pushing Kara and laughing at the over exaggerated way in which she reacts to the retaliation. It’s quiet for a moment as Kara takes it all in, as she watches the way Lena sits calmly under her examination like she’s happy to let Kara vault over a couple of her walls this time, like she’s happy to be able to share.

“Thank you for telling me the truth.”

“I can’t explain it but for some reason it’s easy with you.”

“I know what you mean.” And she did. It was something that Kara couldn’t put her finger on. Something about Lena that made Kara want to tell her everything she’d ever learned - about herself, about others, about the world. Something that swirled in her chest and that she couldn’t put a name to quite yet. Just _something_.

* * *

 

  **Three.**

She kinda loves emojis. A heart here, a smiley face there, an incredibly random concoction of emojis Kara didn’t even realise existed elsewhere. Lena liked emojis. Only, Kara realises a week after she makes this mental note that it isn’t quite true when she catches a glimpse of a text chain. A text chain completely barren of pictures or colloquialisms or anything beyond basic formal responses. She notes this again, and again, and again, and yet, she still receives hearts and good night texts and sometimes the little emoji that winks whilst sticking its tongue out.

So Lena doesn’t love emojis.

She just likes sending them to Kara.

For some reason, that makes her heart swell.

* * *

 

  **Four.**

Lena’s accent was curious to say the least. At first Kara had thought nothing of it, Lena had seemed as American as the next person, as long as that next person was well spoken and use niceties to a fault. Overall, it had all seemed pretty run of the mill. And then Kara saw her get excited.

It’s subtle at first. An oddly pronounced word here, some strange vernacular there. It takes Kara a few meetings to notice anything out of the ordinary, a few lunches to get Lena talking enough that the oddities slip out into the open, and by then Kara can’t stop, can’t seem to stop wanting to unwrap every syllable to draw out the verbal map of Lena Luthor.

The first thing she learns is that Lena isn’t from Metropolis like the tabloids would have you believe. She’s from a quaint little town a few miles out of the city. The kind of little town Kara had been mesmerised by when she first landed on Earth and started consuming popular culture at an alarming rate. It’s where she takes a few simple phrases, where she first learned to say please and thank you, what she reverts back to when she feels like she’s being listened to without judgment.

It’s charming. Warm. Kind.

Then Kara learns about Lena’s nanny from the south of France. The one who taught her to cook when no one else was around and put band aids on her scrapes and cuts before anyone else even noticed they were there, marring her perfect Luthor image of beauty. She learns that Lena sometimes forgets the name for things in English and slips into another language that helps her to feel more at ease. She learns that Lena likes the way swearwords roll from her tongue in a language that isn’t her own like it both heightens and lessens the heat behind them.

She learns about Lena’s Russian tutor and the kind old German man she used to sneak out of the house to meet in the park just to play chess - the first person she really considered a friend. She hears about Jack Spheer and his ridiculously English accent that Lena found herself imitating, first as a joke to watch the way his eyes would roll dramatically and then accidentally after too many hours listening to him refuse to shut up in the lab.

Kara learns a lot, _a lot_ , and yet, when Lena opens her mouth to spew plans for her latest project, having finally escaped the business side of things for a few days, there’s still something lingering underneath it all that takes Kara by surprise.

In the end, it’s not Kara that uncovers this secret. It’s Alex who questions a disarmed Lena at the newly minted ‘girls night’ about her past and her curious pronunciation of the letter ‘t’. Alex isn’t subtle in her questioning and Kara wants to chastise her for putting Lena on the spot, except she can’t really do that when it had been her throwing Lena to the wolves the last few weeks with her completely mistimed and wrongly worded asks about tattoos and childhoods.

But Lena is polite nonetheless, responding with a short, “I went to boarding school in Ireland”.

“I didn’t know you went to boarding school,” Kara comments before Alex can question any more, not because she wants to act as a buffer, she stopped doing that after their third meeting when Alex greeted Lena with a smile sans an ounce of suspicion (she also let herself have an extra donut in celebration). So, no, she’s not trying to minimise damage. She’s just googled Lena one too many times to not know this piece of information – a fact that must be plainly written on her face when considering the answer Lena gives in return.

“Most people don’t. Lillian didn’t want to ruin the illusion of the perfect family by admitting she sent me across an ocean to be someone else’s problem for most of the year. Never did miss an event though.” That Kara definitely had seen. Picture, upon picture, upon picture of young Lena Luthor pressed into her father’s side as Lex was pressed in her mothers. The _perfect_ picture of the _perfect_ family. That image had been marred now. A few times over. But Kara figures the image had haunted Lena far sooner than it had horrified the public.

“But you hate flying,” is what Kara replies with, mostly because now isn’t the time to touch upon anything else, and a little because Kara had heard Lena’s heartbeat on the helicopter that day, and she couldn’t imagine her willingly entering planes so often in her youth – though the fire in Lena’s eyes suggest perhaps ‘willingly’ wasn’t quite the way to describe it.

“I do,” Lena admits softly and the tone has Kara storing the answer away to be questioned later. There’s a pause then. A breath. A second as Lena and Kara simply watch each other; take a moment to silently regard one another as they take it all in - the resignation in Lena’s words from years of distance from the events, the uncomfortable twitch to Kara’s throat as she tries to swallow the information for the first time.

“What was it like?” The tension is broken by a curious Alex once again.

“Quiet. Free of expectation. _Very green_.”

“Don’t tell me you wore one of those ridiculous school girl uniforms,” Alex quips and Kara will deny to her dying breath that she immediately pictures Lena in full regalia. She totally doesn’t. That’s totally not the reason blood rushes to her face. It’s not.

“You shouldn’t knock them; they definitely expedited my gay awakening. Without them I might have been hitting my thirties still thinking I was straight until a delightful lady cop walked into my life.” And just like that Kara learns a few more things. One - Lena had reached a whole new comfort level with Alex. Two - that fact meant more to Kara than she even realised. Three - Lena liked girls. Four - that fact also meant more to Kara than she even realised (infinitely more).

“Well played, Luthor.”

Five - the name Luthor didn’t make Lena flinch when Alex said it with a smile and a tilt of her beer bottle in recognition of being bested.

“Thank you, _Danvers_.”

Six - Lena’s smile made Kara’s heart race (six point five - she was in trouble).

* * *

 

  **Five.**

It doesn’t take Kara too long to realise Lena loves pet names.

That’s not to say she always enjoyed being called them. Her jaw clenched when she heard them used in what she took as a condescending tone, the distinct patronisation of an older man who was under the assumption that he knew more than her – Kara usually found those assumptions to be completely incorrect (a fact those men also quickly became privy to).

Kara had witnessed the way her body tensed whenever Lillian dared to use them in the few times Kara had seen their interactions, almost like Lena was eternally waiting for the other shoe to drop, like she never really expected the term of endearment to be anything more than a momentary distraction from the latest scheme concocted by her mother. She’d also seen the vague sparkle of hope in Lena’s eyes in those moments that was always snuffed out in the end.

But, despite these reactions, Lena loved to use them herself. Kara might even go as far as to say she loved to use them on Kara especially, though that may have been wishful thinking.

It starts with a darling here or there, and then everywhere. Always in that sultry drawl that Kara was sure Lena hadn’t even realised she was using. The one that sent a shiver down Kara’s spine. The one that made Kara realise she should maybe think a little more into why a simple word made her blood go on the fritz throughout her veins.

Then it escalates. Honey when she’s distracted. An accidental babe one day that makes her pause and Kara smile without thought. She tries it again more confidently a few days later, Kara still smiles, her face throwing in a blush for good measure.

Then it’s love.

_Love_.

Always at the end of a sentence, taking up the place of a full stop and the space in Kara’s mind designating to over thinking and overanalysing. Always seemingly thrown in without thought, always soft, always the exact thing to throw Kara off her game for the rest of the day.

Always for Kara.

Only Kara.

* * *

 

  **Six.**

“You named your childhood turtle, Shelly?”

“Says the girl who named her cat Streaky?”

“At least it was original.”

(Lena could throw pillows very accurately).

* * *

 

  **Seven.**

Lena had a closet full of sweaters from the places she’d been. An entire closet filled with soft jumpers with logos of schools, colleges, cities, and small quaint towns dotted about this country and others (Kara doesn’t comment on the one she knows is both the oldest and the least worn, the one that Lena’s birth mother gave her that sparked the purchase of the rest of them).

Kara tries them on periodically. Borrows them for a day or two and laughs gently when Lena sends texts pretending to be annoyed and demanding Kara send her a picture of her deceit. Kara knows Lena saves them in a folder marked with her name.

The first one she steals, _really steals_ , has Disneyland printed on the front above a waving Mickey Mouse. It’s not the softest one of the bunch, nor is the one that best fits Kara, but it’s still her favourite by far because of the story behind it. Her favourite for the image it makes her remember. One of little thirteen year old Lena Luthor charming her driver and the Luthor pilot into accompanying her there for the day.

It’s small and has a mustard stain right down the front but it’s the one Kara takes from the bunch because it makes her think of a little girl with an unburdened smile. And maybe a little because Lena laughs jovially every time she catches her in it - sleeves barely skimming at her forearms and a sliver of her stomach uncovered.

* * *

 

  **Eight.**

Movie night at Lena’s was nice. Her TV was bigger and Kara was never afraid that someone was randomly going to barge through the door - except Alex who would probably not hesitate in flashing her badge at the doorman in order to slip by. But it made her feel little less burdened.

Calmer.

Usually.

Not this time.

She kept hearing sounds. An odd sort of buzzing. And yes, Kara had ruled out the chance of it being... that. It wasn’t that kind of buzzing. More of a hum. It’s quiet. Subtle. Stops every now and then only to start up again and Kara might have ignored it, she _would_ have ignored it, if it weren’t for the anxious shifting of Lena pressed against her side every few seconds.

“Are you hearing that?” Kara finally gives in, turning to watch the emotions shift across Lena’s face before she squashes them all and continues to stare at the screen. That, in itself, is the biggest giveaway - her sudden ‘genuine’ interest in the film - because she had barely dedicated any attention to the film for the last twenty minutes.

“...no.”

“Lena, what is that?” Kara asks, though she’s already on her feet and searching for it when the words slip past her lips. In her defence of the perhaps excessive curiosity... okay, so she had no real defence but Lena was looking really sketchy and Kara couldn’t stop hearing that stupid sound reverberating in her head and she needed some closure.

She stops outside the closet she’s sure the sound is coming from when Lena is suddenly right at her side and attempting to grab hold of her.

“Wait, no!” Lena tries in one last ditch attempt, sighing when Kara instead flings the door open and looks down at a blue streak of light on the floor. It kinda looked like a sword but rounded, sparking something familiar in the back of her mind.

Kara reaches towards the switch on the wall and flicks on the lights, gasping in delight at what she finds. Now, Kara herself had never been a fan, had never actually seen the films but she was almost sure that the incredible amount of merch spread around the room, from Winn’s years of trying to convince her to get involved in his marathons, was from that Star Wars thing. She takes a moment to really survey the room, from shelves to posters to more light swords (sabers?) before she turns her head to catch Lena’s eye from over her shoulder with an incredibly excited smile on her face.

(Lena looks decidedly less delighted).

“Are those custom spotlights over your figurines?”

“No.”

“I think they are.”

“Maybe,” Lena acquiesces and Kara would take the time to chuckle at the look of resigned horror on Lena’s face if it weren’t for the fact that her eyes had zoned in on something else, something far more worthy of receiving her attention, something she was never going to let Lena forget.

“This is a costume,” Kara points out needlessly as she picks up the white garment. It looks more like a snowsuit than anything else and suddenly all Kara can think about is Lena wearing it around her apartment. Did it just stay hidden in the closet? Did she just put it on for fun; just start washing the dishes whilst wearing some pristine couture snowsuit?

She was such a nerd.

“No it’s not,” Lena argues, fighting even with her back pressed against the wall.

“Can you put it on?” Kara asks, her most charming smile coming out in full force as she presses it towards Lena’s crossed arms. Maybe her technique is a little unfair. Maybe she knows that there is no way Lena will actually say no to her. Maybe she is willing to overlook all of that as long as this situation ends with Lena succumbing to the heights of her nerdiness.

“Fine,” she relents, glaring playfully at Kara’s cheer. “But, you have to wear this,” she says, pulling out another costume with a waistcoat and gun holster that Kara had definitely seen before on posters (yes, the posters plastered in Winn’s apartment). “And we’re turning off this rubbish in favour of A New Hope.”

“Deal,” Kara says with a grin, taking the costume from Lena’s hand and all but dashing to the bathroom in her excitement.  Now, Kara had considered a lot of things. She had considered how amazing the photo of Lena in her costume was going to be at making her blush. She had considered how much Winn was going to love this turn of events, how much Alex would too for an entirely different reason. She had considered how much she personally kinda loved her little waistcoat.

She had not considered how hot she was going to find Lena in her replica snowsuit with her hair now thrown into a haphazard bun like she was aiming for a particular style but didn’t have the time.

She probably should’ve factored it in.

Lena shifts nervously under Kara’s intensely focused gaze.

She definitely should’ve factored it in.

“Alex always told me not to watch the films before, says it’d scare me,” Kara admits to the floor, if only to distract herself from staring any longer at Lena. It works. Momentarily. Then she looks back up at Lena and is back at square one. Lena, on her part, seems to think upon these words for a second, a look passing over her face as it clicks as to exactly the reason Alex would have steered Kara away. A sympathetic smile settles for a few seconds before it disappears under a teasing grin.

“I’ll tell you when to look away.”

“Then let’s do this!”

“Okay,” Lena chuckles at Kara’s show on enthusiasm. “You look very snazzy by the way,” she adds, tugging gently on Kara’s waistcoat. Kara covers her blush with a vague “ditto” and a quick walk back towards the couch which she throws herself onto with a huff.

Kara falls asleep in the crook of Lena’s neck somewhere in the middle of the second movie (she enjoyed the first more than she’ll ever admit to Winn). She doesn’t know how long she’s been asleep when she’s startled awake by a cacophony of sirens, long enough that she’s disorientated and that Lena had taken the initiative to settle Kara’s head onto her lap so she could run her fingers soothingly through her hair.

“I think that’s your cue,” Lena says simply, eyes drifting towards the flashing lights outside the window, her fingers never halting their gentle movements, not even as Kara jerks slightly under her ministrations at the underlying implications of her words.

“What?” Oblivious and confused was the way to go right?

“You’re not slick, Kara. I’ve found your clothes around CatCo more times than I can count. On that note, you should really find a designated drop-off point.” Lena had found her clothes. _Lena knew_. Lena knew that she was Supergirl and instead of saying something about it had simply been laughing to herself at Kara’s inability to undress in more secretive areas. Of course she had.

“That’s a good idea,” Kara comments numbly, noting how Lena still hadn’t stilled her hand, still hadn’t pushed Kara away and gotten angry at her for lying (or more, omitting what they both knew to be true) to her for over a year.

“You’ll come to realise I have lots of those.”

“I already know that,” Kara promises and Lena smiles softly down at her in response. “You’re not mad?” Kara can’t help but ask, even if she’s a little afraid it’ll open the flood gates to a far less amiable conversation. She’ll admit she never expected this to be the way it came out. She had expected to finally gather the courage to tell Lena and have a door shut in her face (or maybe a slap like she always saw in films, even though that would not have ended well for Lena’s hand).

Instead she gets a, “I’m not mad. I would like to talk about it though.”

“We can do that.” Kara could do talking. She could definitely—Siren’s sound back through the room and Kara smiles sheepishly. “I should probably get that first though.”

“I can wait.” Kara smiles at the patient words, pushing herself away from Lena’s warmth and towards the window seeing as smashing through her ceiling probably wasn’t the way to keep this conversation going in the right direction. “Wait.” Kara stops obediently, turning towards a chuckling Lena. “You might want to change first, _Han Solo._ ” Kara looks down at herself. _Right_.

“Obviously,” she offers with a self conscious smile, before slipping her upper costume off to reveal the one underneath and dropping from the window with one last sheepish salute to Lena.

Kara takes a lap round National City when she’s done, stops an armed robbery and a home invasion along the way just to clear her head. In the end, any worries she had are unfounded when she returns to Lena offering her a cup of hot cocoa and a smile. Mostly she just asks questions about Kara’s life before all this mess, how she came to be a superhero, how she came to be so bad at lying about being a superhero (‘I flew here on a bus? Really Kara?’).

She tells Kara about the knot in her chest when she first figured it all out, when she first realised that her only real friend was lying to her. Then she tells her about the following week she spent berating herself for jumping to the worst possible conclusions, for immediately assuming it was because of her last name when Kara had never judged her for that before. She tells Kara about the pint of ice cream she smashed through as she tried to get into the mindset of Kara and how, ultimately, she realised the lies weren’t really about her.

They were about Kara.

Kara who had spent every waking moment hiding her powers until a few years ago, who was probably under the impression hiding was how she was supposed to live. Kara, who cringed every time she lied to Lena like she didn’t want to do it but didn’t know what else to say, didn’t know the right way to confess. Kara who protected her at every turn and probably saw keeping her in the dark as another way of keeping her safe (‘which is absolutely ludicrous, love, but sweet. In a stupid way.’)

Kara learns that Lena’s nerd levels rival that of Winn’s and then she learns that Lena is far more understanding than anyone gives her credit for and, though Kara has absolutely no idea how she came to be that way, she loves her for it.

She loves her for a lot of things.

* * *

 

  **Nine.**

“I had some thoughts about your suit.”

“Think about it a lot do you?”

“About improving it, yes.”

“So you don’t want to try it on?”

“Well, I didn’t say that.”

* * *

 

  **Ten.**

Lena doesn’t take care of herself.

Sure, when she ate it was a carefully chosen meal with more vegetables than Kara would eat in a week, but she never ate three meals a day without prompt and was more likely to be found chomping on a bag of carrot sticks she found in her desk drawer than getting some protein. Kara had figured this out within the first two weeks of being friends with Lena (on the third week she learned that it was Jess who put new bags of carrots in the drawers on a daily basis).

She fell asleep in her office more nights then not - slept in general even less. She’d been known to fall asleep on Kara midsentence during movie nights. Kara never interrupted that. She did, however, take a load of photos of her pulling silly faces by her sleeping form. That’s what friends were for.

The point of all that being that, whilst Lena was a complete genius and never once faulted in putting on a professional front when required, she was ultimately a mess. A very, _very_ beautiful mess but at her core a mess nonetheless. Kara thinks that was probably the reason she was drawn to her in the first place - the hidden vulnerability, something Kara herself related to far too easily.

It’s for the very reason of her complete mess-ness that Kara finds herself so shocked the night Lena leads her to her rooftop and discovers that the area she expected to be barren and boring was covered in twinkling lights and bounteous blooming flowers.

It’s because of the flowers that Kara doesn’t take in the nervous twitch of Lena’s hands, the way her fingers twisted and turned with each other, nor did she notice the almost pained look on her face as her mouth opened and closed like she had finally settled on what to say only to immediately decide it wasn’t quite right. Lena was nervous but Kara couldn’t stop the cogs in her brain turning for even a second to actually stop and take note of that fact.

“Kara, I-“

“Are these your plants?” Maybe she shared the roof? But then there was only one access point and it was from Lena’s apartment.

“Err, yes. Yes these are my plants. But, Kara, I actually wanted to tell-”

“Do you have a gardener for your roof?” That had to be it. There was no way Lena had managed to do this. Sure, she was smart. And yes, she did seem to love flowers but the ones in her office changed every few days and Kara figured they had just died from lack of care. The very lack of care that Lena applied to herself on an everyday basis. Maybe Jess did it for her?

“No I planted these myself.”

“They’re alive,” Kara observes bluntly.

“They are.” Kara gives her a sceptical look as her hand runs along a particularly alive looking plant and Lena sighs before continuing on when it’s obvious Kara wants her to elaborate. “Gardening calms me down. I come up here at least once every day. Sometimes twice if I find myself in a particularly mind-numbing meeting.”

“All you had yesterday before I brought you dinner was a punnet of grapes and a swig of Gatorade that you gagged at because you could, and I quote, _‘taste the bad decisions’_ but you can keep your roof garden alive no problem?” Honestly it would’ve been hilarious had Kara not been seriously worried for Lena’s health. Not that she looked unhealthy. She actually looked really great that day. Like most days... all days... including that time she spent thirty-six hours straight in her lab and showed up to Kara’s with hummus in her hair ( _especially_ that time she had hummus in her hair).

“I like plants?” Lena offers weakly.

“And I like you, alive and healthy.”

“Speaking of liking, that’s actually what I wanted to t-“ Lena tries again but Kara’s already zoned out in favour of staring in awe at the beauty around her, too busy being overwhelmed by confusion and intrigue to take note of what Lena is trying to say.

“This place is insane.”

“Kara, I-“

“Are those plumerias?”

“Yes, but Kara, I really need to-“

“Oh, this is beautiful, what is it?”

“A jade vine. It’s actually incredibly hard to keep alive in this environment since it’s usually only found in rainforests in the Philippines. Why am I telling you this? Kara I-“

“Oh Rao, this one is-“

“Kara I like you!” Lena cuts into the sharp succession of questions. Kara halts. Flicks her eyes towards a shuffling Lena who looks like she’s trying to hold her ground and failing miserably, only Kara can’t figure out why. Of course Lena liked her. They were friends. Weren’t they?

The confusion on her face must be evident because Lena huffs before tagging on, “romantically,” in a shaky kind of tone. Oh. _Oh_. “This wasn’t the way to tell you was it? I’ve just sprung it on you. I should’ve eased you into it, you probably haven’t even considered-“

“I’ve considered it. A lot.” More than she even really realised. More than she’d like to openly admit. Vaguely, Kara registers that she’s pretty much been considering it since she met Lena - something she probably should’ve figured out when she started a mental journal on her. That should’ve been a pretty huge indicator. That, and the fact that Lena was the sole reason Kara realised she could actually get sweaty palms.

“Yeah?” Lena checks, shifting closer to Kara when she begins to nod in affirmation, searching for the rights words to actually say out loud.

“Yeah, and, um, I like you too. Romantically.” Maybe she should have taken longer. Lena grins, tugging Kara towards her by the lapel of her jacket, smoothing the crease it creates the moment their bodies are an inch away from touching. So maybe those were exactly the right words.

“You do?” Lena’s even closer now. Close enough that Kara can see the colours in her eyes battling for dominance. Green. Blue. Grey. She loves them all. Almost as much as the way she can feel the hairs on Lena’s skin standing on end and brushing against her own. It’s an odd thing to focus on, what with Lena’s lips so close, but every movement sends a buzz running along Kara’s body and she feels like she’s seconds away from developing an addiction to this moment, this half embrace.

“Very much so,” Kara admits, eyes dropping to follow the shift of Lena’s feet as she pushes herself up onto her tiptoes and into Kara’s chest. Her lips are closer now, brushing tentatively across Kara’s like she’s testing the waters. Another fact about Lena Luthor - she clearly enjoyed torturing Kara.

“I’m going to kiss you now, if that’s okay?”

“Please do.”

* * *

 

  **\+ One.**

The thing Kara learns about herself on that roof is something she’d suspected for a very long time. She really, _really_ likes kissing Lena Luthor.


End file.
